Chad Johnson

Chad Johnson, a former Deputy Attorney General for the State of New York, is the Managing Partner of the Firm’s Manhattan office. Chad has been litigating complex securities cases and breach of fiduciary duty actions for over 30 years. Chad’s background includes decades as a plaintiffs’ lawyer, a securities-fraud prosecutor, and as a defense lawyer. Chad’s cases in the private sector have recovered more than $9 billion for investors.

Chad previously was the head of New York’s securities fraud unit and served as Deputy Attorney General for the State of New York. In that role, Chad helped recover billions of dollars and make new law favorable to investors. As a senior member of the Attorney General’s Office for the State of New York, Chad pursued cases against Wall Street fraudsters for making false statements to the investing public.

In the private sector, Chad represents institutional and individual investors in securities and breach of fiduciary duty cases, including representing investors in direct or “opt-out” actions and in class actions. Chad represents some of the world’s largest and most sophisticated asset managers, public pension funds, and sovereign wealth funds. Chad also represents and works with whistleblowers.

Chad’s cases have resulted in some of the largest recoveries for shareholders on record. This includes $1 billion recently recovered for shareholders in the Dell Class V litigation, which is nearly four times the next-largest comparable recovery in the Delaware Court of Chancery. This recovery of $1 billion was reached on the eve of trial, and is the largest securities class action or derivative recovery ever in any state court in the nation. Chad also helped lead other securities cases that resulted in massive recoveries for shareholders, including in: WorldCom (more than $6 billion recovered for shareholders); Wachovia ($627 million recovered for shareholders); Williams ($311 million recovered for shareholders); and Washington Mutual ($208 million recovered for shareholders).

While a Deputy Attorney General for the State of New York and Chief of the New York Investor Protection Bureau, Chad helped recover $16.65 billion from Bank of America and $13 billion from JP Morgan Chase for toxic residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) devised and sold by those banks.

Chad has successfully tried cases in federal and state courts, in the Delaware Court of Chancery, and in arbitration tribunals in the United States and overseas. Chad also advises institutional and other investors about how best to enforce their rights as shareholders in the United States and abroad.

Before joining Robbins Geller as a partner and head of the Firm’s Manhattan office, Chad was a partner with Quinn Emanuel where he was the Chair of that firm’s Institutional Investor Litigation Practice. Earlier in his career, Chad was a partner with Latham & Watkins.

Chad grew up in Michigan in a union family and earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and his law degree from Harvard Law School.

Harvard Law School, J.D., cum laude 

• President of the Harvard Law School Forum

University of Michigan, B.A., Political Science 

• High Distinction
• Angell Scholar

• State of New York
• State of Illinois
• District of Columbia
• United States Courts of Appeals for the Third, Ninth, Tenth, and Federal Circuits 
• United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York
• United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan